Learning Makes a Difference 05/29/2013

• Guidelines for Working with Adult Learners. ERIC Digest

  tags: andragogy adult_learning eit

• Building An Online Learning Community by Kevin Wilcoxon : Learning Solutions Magazine

  tags: eit online learning community developing

• Building an Online Learning Community | Samuel Merritt University

  tags: eit onlinelearning online learning community

• Education Week Teacher Professional Development Sourcebook: The Changing Landscape of Teacher Learning

  tags: 21st century learning PD onlinepd onlinelearning EIT Dede

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Voki is a FUN way to do an Intro!

Voki is a fun way to have an avatar introduction you to your class.  I have asked my students to do this, but rarely have done it myself.  I am going to do that this year.  Should be fun.  Here is the intro that I did for an INTEL course that I am taking called "Facilitating and Implementing Online Professional Development."  Should be fun.

What do you use for introductions?  Can you suggest Avatars that you can make talk?  I tried Xtranormal but it didn't work correctly.

Z

Related articles

• V is for Voki
• Playing around with Voki
• National Poetry Month: Web 2.0 Poetry~ Voki
• Communicating with Technology (our next unit of study)

What Do Teachers Make? (Happy Teachers' Appreciation Day)

Happy Teacher's Appreciation Day, Everyone!!!

This is the day when we will appreciate you teachers who brought out the best in us. You made us achieve levels of excellence that we thought impossible.  You challenged us to succeed!

I must admit that my best days in life are those when I made a difference in someone's life. It might be a student or a son or a grandson or a complete stranger, but I possess the Teacher's Gene and it is what gives me pleasure.

I recently had dinner with a couple of guys who were my college roommates back at UCSB.  We started talking about retirement.  I had thought about retirement before but that night I couldn't imagine living a life when I wasn't trying to improve our classrooms by providing future and present teachers with innovative learning experiences that they could use in their own classrooms.  I couldn't imagine not working with students to challenge them to do the impossible.

I couldn't imagine not teaching.

I just bumped into Taylor Mali's talk on What Do Teachers Make.  It is a 3-minute soliloquy about what a difference teachers make in the lives of their students.  Here it is for you to watch along with a list of what Taylor identifies as "What Teachers Make."    Go Taylor.


Teachers Can Make . . .

• kids work harder than then ever thought they could.
• a C+ feel like a congressional medal of honor.
• an A- feel like a slap in the face
• kids sit through 40 minutes of study hall in absolute silence.
• parents tremble in fear when I call home to compliment students on their actions. 
• parents see their children for who they are and who they can be.
• kids wonder, question and criticize
• kids apologize and mean it
• them write, write and write and read, read, read definitely and beautiful until they will never misspell either of those words again.
• them show all their work in math class and hide it on their final drafts in English.
• them realize that if you have this (brains) and you follow this (heart) then you don't have to worry about what you make ($$$)

Teachers make a Difference . . . what about you?

 Related articles

• It's Teacher Appreciation Week
• Rising through the ranks - becoming an outstanding teacher (in the UK)
• Ames teacher wins national environmental award
• Thank a Teacher This Week
• In Appreciation of Teachers
• Promethean Announces Thank a Teacher Contest to Celebrate National Teacher Appreciation Week, May 6 - May 10, 2013

What IS the Difference Between 20th and 21st Century Classrooms

What ARE the differences between the 20th and 21st Century Classrooms?  We have heard a great deal about how the 21st Century Classroom's characteristics but I found that the 21st Century Schools website has a comprehensive comparison.

How should we use this? I have introduced this in my classes and my students have found it to be a valuable tool fool as they evaluated their own classes as to their level of 21st Century qualities.

Look these over and use them to review your own classes.  How can you improve your teaching?

• 20th Century Education is teacher-centered with a fragmented curriculum and students working in isolation memorizing facts.
• 21st Century Education is student-centered with real-life, relevant, collaborative project-based learning.

• 
  

20th Century Classroom Qualities	21th Century Classroom Qualities
Time-based	Outcome-based
Focus:  memorization of discrete facts	Focus:  What students Know, Can Do and Are Like after all the details are forgotten.
Lessons focus on the lower level of Bloom’s Taxonomy – knowledge, comprehension and application.	Learning is designed on upper levels of Blooms’ – synthesis, analysis and evaluation (and include lower levels as curriculum is designed down from the top.)
Textbook-driven (content comes from textbooks)	Research-driven (content comes from student research)
Passive learning	Active Learning
Learners work in isolation – classroom within 4 walls	Learners work collaboratively with classmates and others around the world – the Global Classroom
Teacher-centered:  teacher is center of attention and provider of information	Student-centered:  teacher is facilitator/coach
Little to no student freedom	Great deal of student freedom
“Discipline problems" – educators do not trust students and vice versa.  No student motivation.	No “discipline problems” – students and teachers have mutually respectful relationship as co-learners; students are highly motivated.
Fragmented curriculum	Integrated and Interdisciplinary curriculum
Grades averaged	Grades based on what was learned
Low expectations	High expectations – “If it isn’t good it isn’t done.”  We expect, and ensure, that all students succeed in learning at high levels.  Some may go higher – we get out of their way to let them do that.
Teacher is judge.  No one else sees student work.	Self, Peer, and Other assessments.  public audience, authentic assessments.
Curriculum/School is irrelevant and meaningless to the students.	Curriculum is connected to students’ interests, experiences, talents, and the real world.
Print is the primary vehicle of learning and assessment.	Performances, projects, and multiple forms of media are used for learning and assessment
Diversity in students is ignored.	Curriculum and instruction address student diversity
Literacy is the 3 R’s – reading, writing and math	Multiple literacies of the 21st century – aligned to living and working in a globalized new millennium.
Factory model, based upon the needs of employers for the Industrial Age of the 19th century.  Scientific management.	Global model, based upon the needs of a globalized, high-tech society.
Driven by the NCLB and standardized testing mania.	Standardized testing has its place.  Education is not driven by the NCLB and standardized testing mania.

Learning Makes a Difference 04/04/2013

• Tech-savvy 'iGeneration' kids multi-task, connect - USATODAY.com

  tags: igeneration learn learning article

• iGeneration

  Educational apps designed for those born in this decade.

  tags: igeneration learn learning

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Learning Makes a Difference 03/23/2013

• Free Technology for Teachers: Wideo - Create Animated Videos With Voiceovers

  Looking for a tool to create animated videos with a voice over? This one might be your answer.

  tags: Learn learning video animation tool web2.0

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Learning Makes a Difference 03/17/2013

• 21 Things 4 Students

  This is a site filled with resources for students. It is designed to "help students improve their technology proficiency as they prepare for success in the 21st Century." Topics range from Digital Footprint to Cyber Safety to Search Strategies to Troubleshooting to Career Prep to Mobile Learning to ???? This is maintained by 3 Michigan Intermediate School Districts.

  tags: 21things4students technology education resources learn learning

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Building Learning throughTechnology Integration

flickr.com/schopie1

Integrating digital technologies into your curriculum is much more than just adding a computer to the lesson. Technology must be considered as a tool that will support learning experiences. It must be selected based upon pedagogical needs rather than the other way around.

Effective learning involves challenging learners with situations that are relevant to their lives and are challenging enough to interest them and engage them in the learning process. When educators discuss levels of intellectual challenge, they typically compare higher-order thinking to lower-order thinking.  These terms are best described by using Bloom's Taxonomy.

Thinking Blooms

Bloom's Taxonomy was first published in 1954 when Benjamin Bloom and his colleagues wanted to create a hierarchy of terms that they could use when they were describing various types of questions that they might use on a test.  Since then, the taxonomy has taken on a broader meaning which educators used to also describe educational activities.

In the 1990s, one of Bloom's students, Lorin Anderson, lead a group of cognitive psychologists who reconsidered Bloom's taxonomy and reworked it to reflect 21st century learning. You will notice that the new taxonomy has changed the static verbs to active verbs by adding "ing" to the end. They also removed Synthesis and placed Creating on the top.  

This tool has been aligned with 21st Century in many ways. Andrew Churches in New Zealand has provided a digital perspective where he begins provides Bloom's Taxonomy with a context and then identifies a number of digital tools that can be grouped into each level. 

Bloom's Taxonomy Blooms Digitally. Churches demonstrates that the Higher-Order Thinking skills are the top three verbs, Analyzing, Evaluating and Creating.  The Lower-Order Thinking skills are the bottom three verbs, Remembering, Understanding and Applying.

Kathy Schrock and Samantha Penney have used a more graphical format to align Web 2.0 tools with the new version of Bloom's Taxonomy. Kathy limits her work to Google tools while Samantha expands it to a wide variety of Web 2.0 tools. Carefully review these sites to provide a background for your later assignment.

Is there any sense in classifying teaching strategies, questions, Web 2.0 tools using an organizer like Bloom's Taxonomy? Can pedagogical activities actually be restricted to one of 6 classifications? Probably not. Grouping tools like these are designed to provide vocabulary for discussions between professionals.  Using these classifications I can distinguish teaching for memorization or developing problem-solving skills.

Adding Technology to the Mix

Technology can be used in a learning environment but will it make a difference? It all depends on HOW technology is used. Like Bloom's Taxonomy, technology can be integrated in a variety of ways. These may include teachers who operate at a basic level by using PowerPoint presentations to support their lecture-driven methods. They also include the teachers who step back and encourage students to use these tools in innovative ways to create new projects and experiences.

The problem has been to find a vocabulary to define these various levels of integration.  Apple Computer sponsored a decade-long research project entitled Apple Classrooms of the Tomorrow (ACOT). This project involved providing technology-rich classrooms by filling them with Apple IIgs computers AND providing one for each of the students' homes (20th century 1:1 computing.)  As they examined the various levels on which teachers used technology, they identified a 5 stages including: Entry, Adoption, Adaption, Appropriation, and Innovation.  Read the article, What is Effective Integration of Technology, and Does It Make a Difference by Debra Rein.  It is a short article, but it provides a background for the ACOT Evolution of Thought and Practice.  Please note that these levels of adoption exist in any teaching/learning situation whether it is in corporate, PK-12 or post-secondary settings.

Watch this video on Edutopia and decide where each of the examples lie on the ACOT continuum.

SAMR -  Substitute/Augment/Modify/Redefine

Another model that is popular in the schools today is the SAMR model. It was developed by Ruben R. Puentedura, Ph.D. to describe a ladder of implementation that occurs as you integrate technology into your curriculum. 

Dr. Ruben Puentedura, Ph.D. http://www.hippasus.com/rrpweblog/

Here is a video that describes the four levels of SAMR:

Did it make sense?  Would you be able to identify and define the 4 levels of SAMR?
If not, here is a Pinterest board that I found that is dedicated to SAMR.  Did you find anything that better fit your learning style?

How would you match the ACOT 5 stages and the SAMR model?  Do they directly link to one another?

ACOT 5 Stages                              SAMR
Entry                                                Simulation
Adoption                                         Augmentation
Adaption                                         Modification
Appropriation                                 Redefinition
Innovation

Technology Integration Matrix (TIM)

The key to successful integration requires a system to integrate the research on Learning Environments with what has been learned about technology adoption. In 2005, the Florida Department of Education created their Technology Integration Matrix (TIM).  This is a matrix that uses a series of 5 steps in technology adoption that is similar to the ACOT set.  It also has a set of desired learning environment characteristics which include Active, Collaborative, Constructive, Authentic and Goal-Directed. 

Go see TIM and play around for a while to see what they have to offer.  You will even find some cells with video examples of lessons in a variety of subjects. 

http://fcit.usf.edu/matrix/download/tim_table_of_summary_indicators.pdf

You will also want to visit the Arizona flavor of this matrix. It is essentially the same but it has video examples sorted by grade level.  NOTE: My students like the Arizona TIM better than the Florida TIM. They have rewritten the descriptions and are easier to understand.  They have sharp lesson plans that have been aligned with the Common Core state standards and provide assessments. It is a  GREAT resource.

NOTE: I have been looking for such a matrix that displays this in a corporate training format, but to no avail.

Barriers to Technology Integration

Change is not always easy.  Even if an innovation can obviously improve learning situations, there are a number of things that can get in the way.  In some cases it has to do with institutional barriers that get in the way.  Review (look for the highpoints) an article, Barriers to Adopting Emerging Technologies in Education by Rogers.  This article looks at potential problems in the PK-12 as well as the University level schools.

Sometimes the problem is in the attitudes and belief systems of the teachers. This is another article which explores the Beliefs and Practices of teachers in the ACOT study.

Changes in Teacher's Beliefs and Practices in Technology-Rich Classrooms by Dwyer, Ringstaff and Sandholtz 

YOUR CHALLENGE:
Technology integration has many faces.  The Entry levels of adoption are not bad to use in the classroom.  Sometimes slideshows are the most efficient way to convey information. The key is to move deftly along the continuum to ensure that your learners are engaging into their learning experiences.  

The key to using the matrix is to identify where your learning activities reside on the TIM.  Are you in the Adoption-Collaborative cell?  Are you in the Transformation-Authentic cell?  This is not a perfect science but it is a way for you to examine what you are doing and provide it a label.  Once you have identified what you are doing, you can then look for ways to move it it up the line.

Look at your teaching/learning/experiences and find 5 instances of technology integration in your special field of interest. You may find these in your classroom, in the room next door, on videos, on paper or ?????  The key is that you consider this important to your field of teaching and it is worth your time to evaluate. 

NOTE: Do NOT emphasize a technology tool. This challenge asks you to find an actual teaching/learning experience where a technology tool is used as part of lesson. The tool is not the center of this activity but rather what can be done using that tool. 

Spend a little time and evaluate it by: 

• Describing the example including level, subject, intended outcome and process.
• Identifying the cell on the TIM into which it would be classified.
• Explain why you classified it into that cell.  What are the attributes that cause it to fit into that section?
• Explain how this would fit into your world of teaching/learning.  How would/could you use it in your classroom?  If you don't have a classroom yet, then place it into the classroom where you intend to work.

BAM!!!!  Take it up a notch.  

Now that you know where you are, let's do some traveling.

Select 3 of your examples and consider how you would reorganize this lesson to move it to another level.  This means that after you have identified the cell where one specific lesson's activities exist, you will identify changes you could make in how you are designing the lesson's activities to move it to another cell that is "Up a notch."  You MUST identify the specific coordinates of the cell where you are moving the lesson. 

• The Characteristics are not in any sequence, so how would you take it to another characteristic?
• The Technology is in a sequence so you will need to move it to the right.  Moving it to the right requires you, the teacher, to relinquish some control to your students. It is a process that allows your students to take on greater roles as problem-solvers.

What Should I Do?

Not that you have done this work, what should you do with it? Use it!!!  You have made a change in your teaching strategies, so use it.

Want a place to share your ideas? Add them as a comment to this post.

I hope that this is will be the beginning of a series of writings that I will share here and in the future. 

Please respond and give me feedback about how you are using the TIM to help you expand your teaching.

Z

Learning Makes a Difference 03/15/2013

• Tech Learning : The State of STEM

  Interesting article in Tech & Learning about STEM. Describes Obama's "Educate to Innovate" and STEM's Report Card which is a report card that says less than 1/2 of respondents have a STEM program in their schools. Discusses future of STEM.

  tags: learn learning

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Using Digital Learning to Promote Deeper Thinking

Digital Learning is NOT about computers.

Digital learning IS about incorporating the new access to information and tools that is available through technology.   This increased access provides learners with an opportunity to make learning meaningful. It enables them to feel as though they are integral in the learning process.

GettingSmart.com has created the infographic below to demonstrate how a variety of tools create opportunities for students to become involved in deeper learning.

Getting Smart also has released a 28-page report of How Digital Learning Contributes to Deeper Learning. This report is downloadable and it is FILLED with suggestions and resources for making learning meaningful to students. This is a MUST READ report for educators who want to make learning more than memorizing facts.

Related articles

• Connected Learning and Implications for Libraries as Spaces and Mentors for Learning
• E-Learning Design Matters (4): Small steps to walk the learning talk
• Building Higher-Order Thinking Skills
• Culture Shift: When the Learner Owns the Learning

Second Life: Another Perspective on Virtual Reality

        Second Life is a virtual world of imagination. Locations, avatars, and ideas are integrated into a realistic 3D setting. This computer-based, simulated multi-media environment enables users to assume unlimited roles in the shape of an avatar and graphically interact with other individuals in user-created worlds. More than 1 million users sign-on per month and it generates over $75 million per year in sales. These sales include rentals in Second Life as well as the sale of virtual goods for avatars (i.e., clothes, houses, decorations.)

         Creating an account is the first step in exploring Second Life. It is simple to create your account and define yourself with an avatar. You can begin by exploring the many lands that populate Second Life for free. Later you may want to create your own space by buying a plot of land for a minimal cost. You can create your own land of imagination and elaborate your dreams in ways that can only be explained through experience. 

            Second Life is actively used in education. It is estimated that as many as 300 higher education organizations teach courses or conduct research in Second Life. Here is a directory of academic organizations who have a presence.  Eighth grade through twelfth grade schools had a presence in Second Life until 2011 when Linden closed the Teen Second Life Grid.

            Innovative technology has been integrated to the training sessions in many of the companies and organizations. Companies use Second Life for product demos, virtual  fairs, or 3D presentation of data. Virtual training can be presented in a gaming format. Virtual learning environments can be enriched with embedded Youtube videos, slide shows, and even links to websites outside of Second Life.

Want to get started? Here is a blog posting giving step-by-step instructions on creating an account in Second Life:  http://goo.gl/nBL1Z

Web Resources on Second Life in Education:

• Second Life in Higher Education  
• Second Life Language Learning Video
• Science Learning Opportunities in Second Life

Written with:            
Maryam Ghayoor Rad
Grad Student, UNI

Image: Some rights reserved by John "Pathfinder" Lester